In the end, the cabbage soup diet was a success. I did indeed survive the whole week, and although the soup itself dropped off my menu early in the week, I still lost 7 lbs. I know I'll go back up a bit this week once I go back to normal eating again, but hopefully it helped me break through the wall I was up against. I'm feeling pretty good about myself nd even wore a pair of pants that I haven't work in years, a size 10! Pretty exciting.
My training sessions are coming to an end soon; I have 5 sessions left. I don't mind really. Although I like what they have done for me, and Natasha has been great, I really don't enjoy them anymore. At first it was hard work, but I looked forward to going. Now it just feels like torture and I don't really enjoy any part of it. Don't get me wrong, I expect a workout to be challenging. But dreading them is not good for progress I don't think. I'm not sure where the switch happened, like I said, Natasha has been fantastic. I think part of it is that with strength training, you do want to take your muscles to fatigue, which means you "fail" at some point, and my brain has a hard time digesting that. I like that my stomach is flatter, my arms smaller, and my clothes fit better. I like that I can almost touch my toes. I don't want to lose any of that, but I don't want to continue the personal training. And I think our wallet is ok with that!
My next challenge... the Halloween party this weekend. It's where I always fall apart, once there is lots of food around me and I can't control my environment. I imagine there will be lots of chocolate bars, lots of snack foods and lots of desserts. It's going to be tough, but I really want to do well this time. The last few times I have faced tough situations, I have floundered, and then felt poorly about myself afterwards. This time I would like to come home and feel proud of the choices I made.
Thursday 27 October 2011
Wednesday 19 October 2011
And The Drum Beat Carries On
I've been stuck for a while, the last couple of weeks I guess, weight-wise. I got down to 171.8 lbs, so very close to the elusive 160's, but kept bouncing up and down between that and 175, because I kept eating things I knew I shouldn't. We were out of town for a wedding, then out of town for a housewarming party, and my control over meals was gone, which seemed to mean my self-control was also gone. This morning I was back up to 176.4 lbs (ah!) but I also started the infamous cabbage soup diet today.
If you are unfamiliar with this diet, check it out here. Basically, you eat unlimited amounts of cabbage soup all week, and each day is certain additional foods. It is only intended to be done for one week. I've tried it before, a couple of times even in high school, but I don't know if I ever actually finished a whole week. It was always purely for weight loss purposes. This time, it is partially weight loss, but also largely as a cleanse. I started to feel not so great after eating less healthy food for a few days. And I desperately needed to get back on track. The cabbage soup diet includes more than enough fruits and veggies, so it seemed like a good way to kick start myself into action.
I'm not loving the cabbage soup itself, but it seems to be filling so I tend to space out while I'm eating it and I don't even notice how it tastes. I was surprisingly not hungry at any point today, although I made sure I had lots of snacks handy. Besides soup, today I could eat as much fruit as I wanted, except bananas. I had apples, an orange, blueberries, grapes and a grapefruit. And a frozen fruit slushie after dinner. Tomorrow will be a bit tougher; soup and vegetables. How on earth do you have a breakfast of just vegetables?? Not to mention that it's parent teacher interview tomorrow night, so I'll be at school until quite late. The good news is that tomorrow is baked potato day, so I have one cooked and packed to take with me to school for dinner, along with roasted broccoli and green beans, baby carrots, orange pepper, and of course soup. And hopefully this insanity will be worth it by the end of the week!
If you are unfamiliar with this diet, check it out here. Basically, you eat unlimited amounts of cabbage soup all week, and each day is certain additional foods. It is only intended to be done for one week. I've tried it before, a couple of times even in high school, but I don't know if I ever actually finished a whole week. It was always purely for weight loss purposes. This time, it is partially weight loss, but also largely as a cleanse. I started to feel not so great after eating less healthy food for a few days. And I desperately needed to get back on track. The cabbage soup diet includes more than enough fruits and veggies, so it seemed like a good way to kick start myself into action.
I'm not loving the cabbage soup itself, but it seems to be filling so I tend to space out while I'm eating it and I don't even notice how it tastes. I was surprisingly not hungry at any point today, although I made sure I had lots of snacks handy. Besides soup, today I could eat as much fruit as I wanted, except bananas. I had apples, an orange, blueberries, grapes and a grapefruit. And a frozen fruit slushie after dinner. Tomorrow will be a bit tougher; soup and vegetables. How on earth do you have a breakfast of just vegetables?? Not to mention that it's parent teacher interview tomorrow night, so I'll be at school until quite late. The good news is that tomorrow is baked potato day, so I have one cooked and packed to take with me to school for dinner, along with roasted broccoli and green beans, baby carrots, orange pepper, and of course soup. And hopefully this insanity will be worth it by the end of the week!
Monday 10 October 2011
Love Is Better Than Chocolate
My friend Shop Girl went 14 months without eating chocolate. She is a brave, brave woman. I figured I could handle a month. And that I did, for the month of September. (Notice I chose a month with 30 days; I would have gone with February but with Valentine's Day....)
Goal # 73 required me to stay away from my favourite food group for a month, and it actually wasn't too bad. There were very few occasions where I was tempted, and just knowing it was completely off the table as an option made it surprisingly easy to say no to.
In actuality, I had chocolate twice during September, but I didn't count them as a strike against me, and I think with good reason. The first time happened at a Weight Watchers meeting. I had weighed in and was just waiting for the meeting to start. At 6:45 p.m and not having had dinner yet, I was hungry so I dug through my purse for gum or a mint, and found a lovely mint from St. Hubert. It was delightful until I realized it was one of those mint-chocolate candies. Strike 1. But was I about to throw away 2 weeks of abstinence over an accidental mint? Hardly. But I did feel really bad about it. Later in the month, I was at M & M Meats and needed a dessert for book club. They had bite-size samples of their Lemonicious Lemon Squares, so I tried one. They were really delicious, so I bought a box. Once I got home and had a closer look at the ingredients, I realized that the topping actually contained white chocolate. I would have never known by taste. Strike 2. But I again was not going to count an accidental encounter with something that did not taste at all like my vice. That and I don't actually enjoy white chocolate usually. Bottom line: goal completed.
October 2 and I baked some Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins. (Mix a box of Devil's Food cake mix with a can of pumpkin. Bake. My kind of recipe). The month was over; bring on the chocolate!
Goal # 73 required me to stay away from my favourite food group for a month, and it actually wasn't too bad. There were very few occasions where I was tempted, and just knowing it was completely off the table as an option made it surprisingly easy to say no to.
In actuality, I had chocolate twice during September, but I didn't count them as a strike against me, and I think with good reason. The first time happened at a Weight Watchers meeting. I had weighed in and was just waiting for the meeting to start. At 6:45 p.m and not having had dinner yet, I was hungry so I dug through my purse for gum or a mint, and found a lovely mint from St. Hubert. It was delightful until I realized it was one of those mint-chocolate candies. Strike 1. But was I about to throw away 2 weeks of abstinence over an accidental mint? Hardly. But I did feel really bad about it. Later in the month, I was at M & M Meats and needed a dessert for book club. They had bite-size samples of their Lemonicious Lemon Squares, so I tried one. They were really delicious, so I bought a box. Once I got home and had a closer look at the ingredients, I realized that the topping actually contained white chocolate. I would have never known by taste. Strike 2. But I again was not going to count an accidental encounter with something that did not taste at all like my vice. That and I don't actually enjoy white chocolate usually. Bottom line: goal completed.
October 2 and I baked some Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins. (Mix a box of Devil's Food cake mix with a can of pumpkin. Bake. My kind of recipe). The month was over; bring on the chocolate!
Monday 3 October 2011
Something, Something About The Chase
Two Fridays ago, Nick and I celebrated a new holiday: Goal # 99. Being September 23rd, we celebrated the Autumnal Equinox. (hey, it's tough finding holidays I don't already celebrate!)
I found a bit of information on how it's celebrated in Japan, but not much, so I kinda created my own version of the holiday. Like in Japan, I decided to honour family memebrs no longer with us and visited my grandparents gravesite. That was about the extent of my Japanese celebration; the rest was my own doing.
I had spent some time at the dollar store and Michaels and got some festive fall decorations and some orange twinkle lights. The scene was set. I planned fall recipes for the entire day: I started with oatmeal for breakfast, a broccoli salad for lunch and a spectacular apple dinner. We had Maple Baked Apple Chicken (fantastic), Roasted Harvest Vegetables (needs more seasoning) and Caramel-Apple Pudding Cake (also fabulous). Since it was the night before my 10km race, we spent a quiet evening in watching the season premiere of Fringe. Overall a pretty perfect night, and a holiday I wouldn't mind celebrating again. It was nice to have a low-stress (read: not Thanksgiving) autumn celebration before the orange feelings of fall fade into Halloween decorations.
I found a bit of information on how it's celebrated in Japan, but not much, so I kinda created my own version of the holiday. Like in Japan, I decided to honour family memebrs no longer with us and visited my grandparents gravesite. That was about the extent of my Japanese celebration; the rest was my own doing.
I had spent some time at the dollar store and Michaels and got some festive fall decorations and some orange twinkle lights. The scene was set. I planned fall recipes for the entire day: I started with oatmeal for breakfast, a broccoli salad for lunch and a spectacular apple dinner. We had Maple Baked Apple Chicken (fantastic), Roasted Harvest Vegetables (needs more seasoning) and Caramel-Apple Pudding Cake (also fabulous). Since it was the night before my 10km race, we spent a quiet evening in watching the season premiere of Fringe. Overall a pretty perfect night, and a holiday I wouldn't mind celebrating again. It was nice to have a low-stress (read: not Thanksgiving) autumn celebration before the orange feelings of fall fade into Halloween decorations.
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